12:17 am - It's a New New York, TodayFriday Night Lights update! I have now seen fourteen episodes, and I really like it and can't stop watching but have stopped short of full-blown love. I expect it to come by the end, however, as I have actually begun to like Riggins by this point, which, what the hell?

I...I...THIS SHOW. It's like everything a sci-fi/comic book geek could possibly want in a television show.

The chyron totally spoils us in the first five seconds by informing us that, contrary to misconception, the confrontation at the end of last week's episode was actually still in the future. Because, Jesus God, Hiro sucks at time travel. Future Hiro looks and sounds so different from Hiro, I would believe you if you told me if it was a different actor. Props, Masi Oka. Props. And to hair and makeup. Mad props.

"I look upset.""Go talk to yourself.""No...I scare me."

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Future Hiro's timeline (also: Ando CALLS him "Future Hiro," hee!) is way cool. It's not infinite possibilities that are being shown but the way people intersect, the way our personal timelines contribute to the overall timeline. How he came to the conclusion that some random night on a subway was the best possible time to deliver a cryptic six-word message, we'll never know.

Then, suddenly: Parkman and the Haitian working together! And Parkman is now a badass! With confidence and shit!

So Niki has returned to her stripper ways, except she now had a bad wig and dances to Goldfrapp (thanks, vonnie_k!). And Peter! Has also become a badass! Everyone in the post-apocalyptic future is ALWAYS badass! It's a thing. He can be invisible and telekinese at the same time! And turn off the TV WITH HIS MIND. Plus, he's got this wicked scar that...we never find out about. Maybe his face blew up. And, now, here is the scar that was mentioned oh so many episodes ago. Back when we were just gobsmacked at the existence of Future Hiro. We never thought we'd actually get to see this future. We didn't know how far the rabbit hole went.

Nathan is President, which we already knew about, and Mohinder's his trusted scientific advisor who's not cool with genocide, and I just NOW realized why they called it Genosha.

Bennet is running an Underground Railroad! With Hana! Hi, Hana! Nice to see you on the actual show! Too bad you're going to be dead in ten minutes. I'll miss your text messages. It's sort of amusing how Bennet has not changed a bit. You can't make him any more badass! He is his own brand. Until he gets killed in ten minutes. DAMMIT. This future sucks!

I don't think we've heard of Molly Walker before now. I wonder what her deal is, if Hiro specifically saved her.

Claire has gone totally Texan and dyed her hair brown, and...yet, she still looks 17. Oooops. The adult actors can get by with a five-year difference, and 22-year-olds play 17-year-olds all the time, but Claire doesn't look 22 to me. She must still be 17, really, because what the hell does she see in this guy? That's not the guy for Claire! Maybe for Sandra. I love that Claire's desire for a normal life is now a matter of self-preservation, since she's hiding from the Sentinels Homeland Security.

Let's all make fun of Mohinder, you guys. It takes him this long to figure out that Hiro can travel through time? Seriously, people didn't fucking know that? I mean, maybe I shouldn't be so hard on them because, honestly, I'm with Parkman on "time travel" being more out there than "telepathy." BUT, for fuck's sake, MOHINDER, you were there when Future Hiro spoke to Peter, and you knew that he had stopped time, and you also knew that Hiro could stop time...or, hell, has Mohinder even meant Hiro yet? I don't even know. Clearly, he at least knows about him after the explosion, and that he can stop time. But, damn, Mo. It took you FIVE YEARS to figure out what happened on that subway? You should really just watch the show; you could learn a lot. We're the audience, and we know shit.

Nathan's "united by grief" speech is a nice, chilling echo of Linderman's original plan. There's a lot of emphasis being put on uniting the world, perhaps because the writers really love X2: X-Men United.

Peter badassly saves Future Hiro and Ando! How awesome is he? Very awesome. Five years will do that to you.

How great is it that Ando's death is what turns Hiro into Future Hiro? I knew he had a purpose! He's Hiro's rock! He's his humanity! He's his BFF! And I really don't do the HoYay stuff, but I honest-to-God thought Peter was going to say something like, "I think he loved you...like that."

So Parkman had a kid and named him after himself? And he did have powers, whatever they are? And Janice is out there, hiding him? Hm.

Nathan and Claire! A father-daughter reunion years in the making. Except Nathan is not sounding very nice! But what is awesome about this is that it's so Nathan; it's very believable that given the right circumstances, Nathan would end up like this. We've seen the seeds. We know he's sort of a power-hungry bastard.

And then Claire is walking away, and...Nathan points and stops her in his tracks. Wait. What's going on? How did Nathan get another power?

And then Claire's forehead is being sliced open and HOLY FUCK IT'S SYLAR. He JUST MENTIONED CANDACE, FOR FUCK'S SAKE. WAIT, CANDACE IS DEAD IN THIS FUTURE? THIS FUTURE SUCKS. STOP KILLING HOT WOMEN. And in retrospect, all that "special" shit is totally Sylar talk. The brilliant thing about this is that Sylar played an excellent Nathan, and that's telling. They both crave power, but in different ways. It makes you wonder how similar they must be, for Sylar to FAKE HIMSELF INTO THE PRESIDENCY.

Back from commercial, Peter makes us all feel like idiots by reminding us that he's the one who explodes. STILL. I was unsure whether this was an alternate timeline or not because Future Hiro knows that in the original sequence of events, Sylar blew up. Peter saved the cheerleader, and now the responsibility of blowing up has been transferred to him. You can't change the future that easily. This means that whether Sylar blows up or Peter blows up, the end result is the same, since whoever blows up ends up having regenerative powers and surviving the blast. Which...makes me wonder why we all thought Sylar was dead. It's because they showed his picture on the TV. That means he's dead.

Niki has stupid hair in this future.This future sucks.

But it can also be awesome, like when Future Peter and Future Hiro go all Neo and Trinity with swords and telekinesis.

Mohinder comes through every one in three chances he gets, so now it's his turn to KILL THE HAITIAN. The fucking intriguing part about this is that it's in Isaac's comic. "Hiro in the Future" is THIS FUCKING EPISODE. Somehow, the actual future, as seen through Isaac's prophetic eyes, INCLUDES the alternate future. TIME TRAVEL MAKES MY HEAD ASPLODE. But I love it anyway.

Hiro finally gets back home (well, we think...next week, the chyron could say, FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, and then the world would be fucked), and he has the "How to Kill Sylar" comic (it apparently involves stabbing him with a giant samurai sword...if only we knew where to find—oh, wait), so that little jaunt into the future hell was NOT all for NAUGHT.

I was generally pleased with the episode, though I wish we could have seen some more of the global effects of the bomb. Was there any uniting? Did Linderman's plan work at all? All it did was make people fear the muties. What will a world with NO bomb look like, then?

The previews made me flail. I love this show. I love that it so deliberately crafts iconic images like Peter exploding with his arms slightly bent outward, red shooting out from every direction but especially upward. I love that it knows what it's doing and where it's going and has a carefully plotted, albeit circuitous at times, route. I love that it is able to surprise the living fuck out of us without cheating.

Three episodes left. It's been one motherfucking hell of a ride.Current Mood:enflailedCurrent Music: Smashing Pumpkins - The End Is the Beginning Is the End

Comments:

Molly Walker was the little girl from the first few episodes, that Matt finds hiding in the closet after Sylar kills her parents. Then Sylar goes after her while she's in protective custody, but Matt and the blonde FBI agent manage to chase him off. I had figured that she must have powers, or else why would Sylar want her, but then forgot all about her. But the writers didn't! This show is amazing.

And I even strongly suspected that future Sylar would be Nathan after last week where he drew the same picture Isaac had, and even suspected he'd have taken Candace's power to make it happen, but it was STILL jaw-droppingly fantastic just like so much of that show.

Let's all make fun of Mohinder, you guys. It takes him this long to figure out that Hiro can travel through time?

Can we also make fun of him for not noticing at least a couple of years that his new boss and best friend was his old buddy Sylar?

It makes you wonder how similar they must be, for Sylar to FAKE HIMSELF INTO THE PRESIDENCY.

I wish someone could tell him that. "Dude, in five years you're so far out there that you'll be taken over by a crazy serial killer, AND NO ONE WILL NOTICE." Although, I have to say that he was a tiny bit "off;" not much, but there were little things. For one, I doubt that Nathan would talk about genocide that lightly, and his reaction to the younger Hiro having been captured would have been different, had it been the real one.

Also, Nathan's dialogue is incredibly telling, if you look for it. Basically his first line (after they catch Hiro) is (paraphrasing): "Are you sure it's him? It could be an illusion. You never know these days." and some time later he says something like, "I'm not dangerous, I can only fly." Sylar is such a cheeky bastard!

But I love how all of this ties in to Sylar's expressionist painting - because, clearly, if he painted the future, he would have looked for his own future, not for the general one - and right back to Fallout, where Peter had the dream of Nathan turning into Sylar.

And of course I will have to curse Tim Kring to all eternity if they really kill off Nathan.

and he has the "How to Kill Sylar" comic (it apparently involves stabbing him with a giant samurai sword...if only we knew where to find—oh, wait)

Did you notice he doesn't have the whole comic? Future Hiro had a page and Ando took it from his dying body. I bet that will be important. (I also bet that the real way to stop Sylar is in the sketchbook, not in the comic.)

Can we also make fun of him for not noticing at least a couple of years that his new boss and best friend was his old buddy Sylar?He did it AGAIN! Freaking Mohinder.

right back to Fallout, where Peter had the dream of Nathan turning into Sylar.I don't remember this dream, but someone else mentioned it. So cool!!

(I also bet that the real way to stop Sylar is in the sketchbook, not in the comic.)That could be true, given Isaac's comment that "it could be worth something someday." But the online comic ALSO shows Hiro stabbing Sylar, but it didn't work because originally, he could regenerate. I would not be surprised if there's more to killing Sylar, and I hope there is, of course. This show is full of surprises.

The distorted painting makes sense now. And that's why Sylar was mwahaha-ing with his eyes in that scene. Yeah I know, I'm such a lose poo to not to let that go. Funny too how Sylar slips in a dig at Nathan's powers while he plays him. He's the president of the United States but he just flies. Oh that Sylar, never contented.

Hiro and Ando have been going around in circles and were being a little dull for my taste, but I was rather touched by their tight bond in this episode as well. Aww BFFS.

Now I can't wait to find out how HRG and Claire reunite in the future. But what happens to Mama Petrelli?

NOT TROO. Genosha existed a billion years before they did any mass murdering there! ORIGINALLY THEY ENSLAVED MUTANTS THERE BY TURNING THEM INTO "MUTATES." WACKY TIMES.

This episode of Heroes was such a geeky, comic nerd wet dream I mean COME ON PEOPLE.

I specced in liminalliz's journal that Peter's scar is from WHEN HE BLOWED UP AND THEN COULD NOT PUT HIMSELF BACK TOGETHER ALL THE WAY. I WILL HOLD TO THIS. UNTIL WE FIND OUT THAT HIRO ACCIDENTALLY STABS HIM IN THE FACE WITH HIS MAGICAL SWORD OR WHATEVER.

Also, I too expected Peter to be like, "I think he was in love with you, Ando."

Genosha existed a billion years before they did any mass murdering there! Weeeeeeell, a nice coincidence, then!

This episode of Heroes was such a geeky, comic nerd wet dream I mean COME ON PEOPLE.WASN'T IT??

I specced in liminalliz's journal that Peter's scar is from WHEN HE BLOWED UP AND THEN COULD NOT PUT HIMSELF BACK TOGETHER ALL THE WAY. I WILL HOLD TO THIS. UNTIL WE FIND OUT THAT HIRO ACCIDENTALLY STABS HIM IN THE FACE WITH HIS MAGICAL SWORD OR WHATEVER.Heeee. I agree!

Also, I too expected Peter to be like, "I think he was in love with you, Ando."It was right there, Rawles, waiting to be said. I don't even have slash goggles, and I saw it.